


Part 4: Quid Pro Quo

by kw20742



Series: Something Like Love [5]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Explicit Language, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 06:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15575313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kw20742/pseuds/kw20742
Summary: Scene continuation from episode 2.5: Late afternoon on Jocelyn’s balcony, immediately after Maggie overhears Ben refuse Jocelyn’s request to make more audio files. Ben says to Jocelyn, “You’re a bloody nightmare. I’m going home. To see my family,” and then leaves. Maggie, coming through the back gate, has heard the conversation from at least “You’re a bloody nightmare.”I assume as canon the deleted scene from this episode (available on the DVD set) in which Maggie appears at the French door before court that morning, while Jocelyn is practicing her cross examination of Susan Wright.





	Part 4: Quid Pro Quo

**Author's Note:**

> Scene continuation from episode 2.5: Late afternoon on Jocelyn’s balcony, immediately after Maggie overhears Ben refuse Jocelyn’s request to make more audio files. Ben says to Jocelyn, “You’re a bloody nightmare. I’m going home. To see my family,” and then leaves. Maggie, coming through the back gate, has heard the conversation from at least “You’re a bloody nightmare.” 
> 
> I assume as canon the deleted scene from this episode (available on the DVD set) in which Maggie appears at the French door before court that morning, while Jocelyn is practicing her cross examination of Susan Wright.

Having watched Ben storm out through the house, Jocelyn looks to Maggie as she climbs from the garden the couple of steps up to the balcony. Eyebrows raised and lips held tight, she gives Jocelyn a sideways glance half way between commiseration and an amiably smug “I told you so.”

“Oh, don’t give me that look.”

Dropping her bag, Maggie plops onto the top of the balcony’s stone wall, right arm resting on the back of the bench, clear eyes on Jocelyn. She knows exactly what is going on here: Ben has finally given Jocelyn the mini bollocking she so rightly deserves.

“How much did you hear?” queries Jocelyn, rather embarrassed both that an argument with her junior has a witness _and_ that Maggie had all but warned her it was going to happen.

“Enough,” Maggie rebukes, resting her chin in her right hand. “You haven’t told him, have you?” she asks, knowing full well that the answer is a resounding ‘no.’

Jocelyn shakes her head in the negative, eyes never leaving Maggie’s, a shamefaced smile on her face.

Maggie harrumphs. “Well, he seems to be managing just nicely, doesn’t he?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ben. I was rather concerned he might not be able to handle you, but it looks to me like he can more than hold his own.”

“You _would_ take his side.”

“Absolutely. And you know,” she leans in a little further to land her point, “it might not hurt, just once in awhile, to tell him how much you appreciate him.”

“I do!”

“How?” Maggie challenges.

“I…” Jocelyn scrambles to think of something, _anything_ she’s done for or said to Ben that hasn’t been a relentless lesson in how to more successfully serve as her junior. “He…” But she comes up short. All she can do is shrug.

“That’s what I thought,” rebukes Maggie.

“I’m not accustomed to lavishing praise on my juniors. Tough love worked for me.”

“A bit of kindness can work, too, Jocelyn. Especially since he’s got all his regular responsibilities on top of recording your files _and_ running interference for you with the Latimers. It’s not likely he counted on either.”

Jocelyn reluctantly concedes the point. “What do you suggest?”

“Well, _I_ don’t know!” Maggie exclaims, rolling her eyes at her own capacity to be always surprised by Jocelyn’s continual need for remedial assistance with being, well, human. “I have no earthly idea what a couple of barristers working on a case get up to, do I?!”

Realizing, though, that Jocelyn is genuinely hoping for her advice, she moves over to sit beside her on the bench. “Tell him what you told me: That he’s working well, that you appreciate him. And,” she adds, playfully nudging Jocelyn’s shoulder with her own, “maybe offering him some food and a glass of wine once in awhile would be a nice gesture, as well. Don’t think I don’t know you keep him up here working ‘til all hours.”

“What makes you think I don’t feed him?”

“You can’t even be bothered to feed yourself half the time.” Jocelyn’s stubborn silence and huffy glare is all the confirmation Maggie needs. “You _are_ a bloody nightmare, you know.”

Not in the least apologetic, Jocelyn arches one eyebrow artfully. “Actually, I _do_ know that. For your information.”

Maggie rolls her eyes. This daft woman is truly impossible. But she loves her beyond words. More fool her. “And _tell_ him. Why you need him to record the files for you. Your life – and his – will be easier for it. That’s the last I’m going to say about that. For the moment.

“Now,” she begins, reaching down for her bag and plopping it onto her lap, “I’ve brought my notebook.”

“What for?”

“For the interview. We’re profiling the legal teams, remember?”

“I said ‘no.’” Jocelyn instinctively crosses her arms, as if to protect her most private self from the prying, predatory gaze of the entirety of Dorset.

“Mmmmn,” Maggie exhales absentmindedly, fishing out from her bag the necessary tools of her trade, “but you didn’t really mean it.”

“Oh, didn’t I?” Jocelyn queries acerbically.

“Nope.” Maggie’s ready now, pen poised, having flipped open her pad with a practiced flourish.

“No, Maggie,” Jocelyn repeats, more sternly this time, rising to her full height. (Maggie pretends not to notice; she’s working here, for fuck’s sake.) “Anyway, I don’t have time tonight,” she explains as she heads inside.

She’s got a tonne of reading to do now that Ben refused to record those additional files. This, on top of the audio files he just uploaded to their shared drive. And most of it has to get done by tomorrow morning so she can prepare to cross-examine Nigel Carter.

Undeterred and, technically, uninvited, Maggie collects her notebook, pen, and bag and follows Jocelyn in, leaving the French door wide open to the salty sea air. It’s such a gorgeous evening. “Look, I’ve ordered dinner. Should be here in fifteen minutes.”

Jocelyn has disappeared into the dining room-turned-office, where she, as usual, is hunting for her reading glasses.

Maggie follows her. “We can do the interview while we eat, and then I promise to leave you alone. With your headphones and all your bits of paper.”

Jocelyn retorts sarcastically, “I see you’ve got my evening all planned for me.”

“We have to eat!” Maggie should just put this conversation on tape and push ‘play’ every time.

As if right on cue, Jocelyn feels her stomach protest its empty state, and she asks, just for the sake of curiosity, of course, “What did you order?”

Maggie grins; she knows she’s got her! “Indian. From the place up by the interchange. I had a craving. Plus,” Maggie pulls a package out of her bag and waves it tantalizingly, “I’ve brought you a present.”

“What is it?” Jocelyn asks, eyes bright as she moves to reach for it, the search for her glasses completely abandoned.

“Unh unh,” Maggie teases as she pulls it away. “Quid pro quo, remember?” She hides the brown-paper rectangle back in her bag. “You get your present after I get my interview.”

“That’s extortion.” Jocelyn turns her back on Maggie and heads for the kitchen.

“Ah! A concise legal analysis from our resident QC,” Maggie calls after her, shaking off her coat and dropping it and her bag unceremoniously on the floor by the bookshelf. She keeps her trusty pen and notebook with her. Just in case.

As she turns to follow Jocelyn into the kitchen, she spies the wayward reading glasses just above eye level, keeping company with an ancient set of criminal law texts. Maggie smiles. She relishes being permitted to know this intimate side of Jocelyn. She can imagine her long, lithe body reaching up for one of those erudite volumes, glasses falling down her nose as she searches for some necessary piece of arcane precedent or procedure.

Hearing the clinking of what are surely plates meant for their dinner, Maggie takes the spectacles and walks into the kitchen. Without comment, she hands them to Jocelyn, who, with a nod of thanks, stashes them safely in the pocket of her cardigan.

“Here or in the conservatory?” Maggie asks, laying her notebook down on the table by the window to grab the stack of plates, cutlery, and napkins that Jocelyn has already set on the counter.

“Whichever you prefer. Although in here might be easier. The table out there is quite unusable at the moment, I’m afraid.”

Once quick glance out at the stacks of paperwork and thick file folders makes Maggie’s decision that much easier. “Right. In here it is.”

She no sooner lays the table, reaching behind her to grab the salt and pepper shakers with which Jocelyn silently nudges her, than the doorbell chimes. “Food!” she chirps and heads for the front door.

Upon her return, Jocelyn asks, holding up a bottle of vino, “Red?”

“Perfect.”

They settle quietly, comfortably, into the ordinary domesticity of enjoying dinner, and each other’s company, at the high-top table in Jocelyn’s kitchen. Not unlike those dinners they shared so long ago, they communicate in gestures and little sounds while digging, family style, into palak paneer and aloo gobi masala with saffron rice and naan. Any observer could hardly be faulted for assuming these women have been together for years. Possibly decades.

Once the first pangs of hunger have been sated and Maggie’s craving for coriander, curry, and cumin has been marginally eased, she gestures to her notebook and asks coquettishly, “Pretty please?”

Jocelyn glowers, but there’s a smile lurking.

“Look, I promise: If you don’t like the questions, you don’t have to answer them. And you never know, it might actually be fun.”

Jocelyn rolls her eyes but can’t resist grinning for all the world as if she’d agree to anything if Maggie asked her. And Maggie knows she would, too.

“Fine,” Jocelyn exhales petulantly, “I never can say ‘no’ to you.” But she’s still quite wary. Maggie knows all her secrets. Well, _almost_ all of them.

“Trust me,” Maggie says softly, reaching across the table to lay a hand on Jocelyn’s forearm. She’s referring to so much more than this one small interview for the _Echo_.

Jocelyn exhales, looking from Maggie’s hand up to her face, those clear, blue eyes full of honesty and kindness and compassion. And Jocelyn realizes for the first time ever that she does. Completely, absolutely, and with all her heart. She replies softly, “I do.”

For the next forty-five minutes, they eat and drink and laugh in between questions and answers. Maggie asks Jocelyn to tell her about coming back to Broadchurch, about her schooling and legal training, her professional awards and accolades, and why she decided to become a barrister in the first place. She asks about why Jocelyn loves her hometown and about why she finally decided to take on the Miller brief.

She suspects she didn’t quite get the whole answer on that last one, but she’ll come back to it some other time, when they’re off the record. There’s a story there, to be sure, but it’s not meant for the _Echo_ ’s readers.

When she’s finished, Maggie puts the cap back on her pen and closes her notebook with a flourish. “See, that wasn’t so horrible.”

Jocelyn only grimaces.

“Now we’ll just need a photo.”

“Absolutely not.” Rising abruptly, Jocelyn gathers cutlery and dishes and heads for the sink.

“Is there a good time tomorrow? I want you in all your finery.” She realizes too late the double meaning in this statement. Bollocks! She glances quickly toward Jocelyn, who seems to have taken it at face value. As it was intended. Although, now that she thinks about it…

“No.”

Maggie heads to the counter with the leftover food. “I can’t run the profile without a photo, Jocelyn.” This is Journalism 101: if she can’t get a photo, then the interview will have been a complete waste of time. Professionally speaking, that is. But hoping flattery will get her everywhere, she continues, “People will want to know what you look like, this brilliant barrister.” She begins distributing their leftovers into the storage containers Jocelyn’s retrieved from the cupboard by the stove. “I can get Olly to arrange it through Ben. It won’t take five minutes. Assuming you behave yourself.”

Jocelyn stops loading the dishwasher to glower at Maggie, one hand on her hip. She’s readying for a fight but then, quite unexpectedly (even to herself), decides against it and asks instead, “Will _you_ be there?” This, it occurs, is a chance to show Maggie how much she does trust her.

“I can be, if you’d like.” Maggie hides her wide, triumphant smile in the refrigerator as she plays Tupperware Tetris. Jocelyn’s vulnerability, always endearing, is made even more so by the fact that Maggie knows she’s the only one who ever gets to experience it. Honestly, she could shag her right now. Taste her lips. Pepper her skin with kisses. Finger the curls behind her ear. Massage her breasts. Make her moan in anticipation. Just turn around and take her right here in the kitchen, against the counter. Oh, for goodness sake! Such indelicacy!

“I would.” Jocelyn shuts the dishwasher and sets it to run.

“Consider it done.” Maggie closes the fridge door on their leftovers – and her fervent fantasy. No. Their first time will be tender, gentle, unhurried. Exquisite. “Now, I’ve got to get back to work. And so do you.”

Heading into Jocelyn’s dining room-turned-office, Maggie lifts her coat and bag off the floor where she left them. She swings into the coat and hitches her bag across her shoulders, ready for the walk back down to her new harbourside office.

Jocelyn sees her to the French door. They linger there, together, looking at each other for just a bit longer than ‘just friends’ would.

“Thanks for dinner. Again.” Jocelyn shrugs.

Maggie laughs, “It was my pleasure. Thanks for doing the interview.”

“You’re welcome. And you’re right: It _was_ a little bit fun.”

Maggie smirks in her best and most practiced ‘I told you so’ way before fishing into her bag for Jocelyn’s gift. “Quid pro quo, remember? Be careful when you unwrap it,” she counsels, knowing full well that Jocelyn will not wait long to learn what’s in the enticing little package.

Jocelyn takes it into her hands before looking back up and into Maggie’s eyes. Not allowing herself to think too much about it, of what it could mean, or of any of the times she did it before, she leans in closer to brush a kiss to Maggie’s cheek. “Goodnight.”

In response, Maggie warmly grasps Jocelyn’s elbow, smiling warmly. “Goodnight, yourself.” And then she’s out the door, down the garden steps, and through the gate. Well aware – and thoroughly delighting in the fact – that her every move is being carefully observed and enjoyed, Maggie intentionally draws out her departure, turning for a last wave up at Jocelyn before heading down into town. Now she’s got her interview, there’s work to be done.

Jocelyn watches Maggie head down towards the harbour until she’s out of sight, then turns her attention to the mysterious brown package. She gently, almost reverently, twists it around in her hands. It must be a book. A paperback.

As instructed, she carefully unsticks the sellotape from both ends to reveal, if the book’s dog-eared condition is any indication, a well-loved copy of the complete poems of Charlotte Mew. It is an unassuming volume. Almost instinctively, she turns the book over to read the blurb on the back. She then looks for the copyright page, skipping (for the moment) the handwritten inscription inside the book’s front cover.

And then the table of contents. She is, it’s true, performing the precise, methodical literary excavation as taught to her long ago by her academic parents. But she’s also deliberately drawing out the emotional connection to Maggie. She wants to savour this opportunity to learn something more about her intrepid reporter, something intimate, something meant only for her.

When Jocelyn lived in London, her mum would, every now and again, send up a few recent issues of the _Echo_ , usually with a little note about her weekly rambles along the cliffs with its editor, which stories featured some of Jocelyn’s old schoolmates, or what was happening in local politics. Jocelyn used to pay particular attention to Maggie’s by-line, not only because she knew those pieces would be well written, but because she could get just a little glimpse into Maggie’s life. A little knowledge of what she’d been doing during any given week.

But this, this is different. This gift is meant just for her. Maggie has obviously read the poems in this book many dozens of times, perhaps while curled up on her couch. Jocelyn remembers Maggie’s visit to London and pictures her as she was then: pyjamas, fluffy socks and a mug of tea. Or maybe just before bedtime, propped up with pillows against her headboard?

She holds her breath as she flips back a few pages to the inscription, which, in Maggie’s clear, bold handwriting, still familiar from those letters of years ago, reads: 

 

> _My dearest Jocelyn,_
> 
> _Thanks for doing the interview (see, I knew you would!). As recompense for deigning to talk to an old Fleet Street hack, I give to you Charlotte Mew. I’ve marked my favourite of hers, which also happens to be my favourite of all. This gift comes, too, with a promise to read the poem aloud to you when next we meet. Have patience, and don’t overwork your eyes tonight._
> 
> _M_

 

Jocelyn flips ahead to the page marked by a purple sticky note and reads the title, “On the Road to the Sea.” She glances down the page at the rest of the poem, but the print is quite small, and obscured by her own failing eyes. For at least the second time this evening, she is forced to admit that Maggie is right: she can’t risk any extra reading. She needs to be able to get through those files that Ben wouldn’t take to record. Plus, as curious as she is, she would rather wait to hear Maggie read it to her aloud.

 

***

 

Having been advised long ago to never, ever read or watch press coverage of any trial she’s litigating, it’s not until one lazy Sunday morning a few weeks after the verdict, that Jocelyn finally reads the short piece Maggie wrote about her for the _Echo_. It’s a sidebar, a mere tangent to the paper’s considerably more gripping weekly chronicle of the events that unfolded at Wessex County Courthouse:

> A proud alumnus of South Wessex Secondary School and the University of Oxford (B.A., History and Politics), lead Crown Prosecutor and Broadchurch native Jocelyn Knight, QC did her legal training at the prestigious Inns of Court School of Law. She was called to the bar in 1972. A recipient of both the Legal 500 UK Award and the UK Chambers Bar Award, she is considered among the UK’s preeminent criminal prosecution barristers.
> 
> Firmly believing that “the law is a calling,” Knight knew by the age of nineteen that she would be a barrister. “I wanted to be part of that tradition of advocacy, part of the flow of justice. And more than that, I wanted to help shape it,” she adds, referring to her appointment, in 1994, to Queen’s Council.
> 
> When asked why she decided to come out of retirement to take the Miller brief, Knight responded, “Danny Latimer delivered my newspapers. It felt right that someone who knew him, who knows this community, should advocate for him, for the family, in court. And I’m doing the best I can to do that."
> 
> Having spent the majority of her career based out of London, Knight now resides fulltime in Broadchurch. “This place, the landscape, the sea, it grounds me. I spent my vacations here, but I always knew I’d come home again."

“You were very brave to sit for the interview,” praises Maggie on her way back in from the kitchen, leaning over Jocelyn’s shoulder to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for trusting me. Here’s your tea.”

“Ah, thank you, my love,” Jocelyn purrs as Maggie puts the mug down on the coffee table and heads for the sofa, opposite. “It’s beautifully written. Of course.”

Maggie smiles, lifting her own mug at Jocelyn in silent acknowledgement of the compliment. She uses her other hand to gather Jocelyn’s father’s old threadbare robe more tightly around her, tucking her feet under as she snuggles into what has very quickly become her spot on Jocelyn’s sofa. Donning her reading glasses, she returns contentedly to the Sunday edition of _The Guardian._

“I’m not sure about that picture, though.”

Maggie looks up and over her spectacles, a soft smile playing at her lips. “You’re just fishing. You know you’re gorgeous. And you know very well I can’t resist you. Especially now I know what’s underneath all that black silk.”

Jocelyn flushes as Maggie’s tantalizingly predatorial gaze turns soft again and goes back to her newspaper.


End file.
